Think.Net
Think.Net is a national communication and information network developed by Ultracorps. It is relied as the sole source of communications for the United States, and its also the leading medium for news and entertainment.
Users simply think about accessing think.Net in order to access the service. From there, they can establish private communication with anyone who has authorized contact. Think.Net also offers news updates in video, audio, and written form. The written articles appear in the mind’s eye of viewers allowing them to read the document. In addition, think.Net offers a Tele-Watching system whereby viewers can watch news and entertainment through the eyes of a distant viewer, or through memories recalled by Big Brain Differents.
Think.Net was developed using discoveries made by Allan Fischman while part of the community The Inner World. Allan hired several of the Telepaths from that community. They intended to expand and commercialize upon The Merge, a state where the Telepaths could share thoughts, which they hoped to develop into a communications system. Telepaths would operate as the bridge between the minds of two normal humans. This would allow the two individuals to communicate, simply by thinking. The users could essentially “hear” one and other’s inner monologue. Using a series of Telepaths, this communication could be performed over a distance of several hundred miles. The limitation was that each Telepath could only connect two individuals, and Telepaths being used as a bridge, were occupied.
Margaret Petrov addressed this limitation in the system. Margaret, was a Big Brain, a Different who possessed an incredibly increased intellectual ability. When Margaret was integrated in the bridge of Telepaths, she was able to greatly increase the number of users that could communicate simultaneously. When the Telepaths attempted to connect multiple users, they essentially received a jumble of thoughts that there were not able to identify with a single user, making communication impossible. Margaret was able to use her increased cognitive speed and scope to quickly identify the individual’s thoughts and connect them to the correct recipient.
In November of 1982, Ultracorps was hired by the Federal government to provide communication services in Washington D.C. Most normal communication methods had been rendered inoperable due to The Plagues. The newly deployed system was called think.Net. Ultracorps was able to use its partnership with the government to assist with tracking down other Telepath and Big Brain Differents, to offer them employment as part of the think.Net.
With the influx of Telepath and Big Brain Differents, Ultracorps was able to greatly expand the size and scope of think.Net. With the creation of the Metro Areas in 1985, Ultracorps connected the eight Metro Areas with think.Net, to allow for nationwide communication. This was facilitated by the creation of nodes. Protected housing complexes located in the Non-Assisted Area where Telepaths and Big Brains could be housed, fed and kept safe, in order to provide a link over the distance between the Metro Areas.
The system was officially implemented on January 1, 1986, during the performance known as The Beat. Think.net was used to broadcast the concert/visual performance to many people in all eight newly formed Metro Areas. The U.S. population was largely living in refugee housing; The Beat is often credited with giving hope to the nation. It also demonstrated the viability of think.Net as a true nationwide network, although the entertainment applications would not be explored again for a decade.
Think.Net continued to grow and expand; this was buoyed by the pass of the Communicate with Loved Ones Act in 1992. This act guaranteed funding to Ultracorps to assist with the expansion and maintenance of think.Net. Think.Net soon started providing information services to the government. Big Brain Differents could be hired to store and recall data ranging from personal event calendars to scientific data. They could even perform math intensive calculations. They were called Librarians, and they were soon integrated into think.Net for personal and business uses.
In 1997, Ultracorps begin deploying the Tele-Watching system, which allowed users to watch news and entertainment programming. New content was created using Pre-Plague, video production methods. A Big Brain would then watch the program, forming perfect memories of the event, which would be stored by the Librarians. That memory experience was than shared over think.Net to users. This was used to provide access to new content, as well as a library of video material created prior to The Plagues. Tele-Watching was deployed nationwide in 1998.
Since that time, think.Net has continued to expand and develop with plans to deploy new and exciting entertainment possibilities soon. Think.Net is an affordable service available to every citizen living in the Metro Areas, local laws permitting.
